I was about to tell him that I didn’t agree, that we had already made a terrible journey, much worse than he could have even imagined, and that our journey had stolen Afra’s soul. But in some ways he was right. Without that money we would have had a much longer road ahead of us.
‘You are right, Marcos,’ I said, and he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and inhaled the air as we edged past the sea.
At the airport we did as Marcos said. We walked through crowds of people; all the while I kept my eye on Marcos’s grey suit. Then I saw him from a distance, standing outside the men’s toilets. He stayed there until he was sure that I had seen him, and then he walked away. I went into the toilets. There was a man pissing, and I saw that one of the cubicles was occupied. I waited for the man to finish – he took his time washing his hands, checking his face in the mirror. Then another man came in with his young son. They took a while and I thought for a moment that there would be a constant stream of people and that I’d be stuck in there for hours. But soon enough the toilet was empty. I knocked on the door three times, as instructed, and a man came out of the cubicle. I hardly got a chance to see him.
‘Nuri Ibrahim?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I confirmed.
Then he handed me the boarding passes and the passports and that was it, he was gone.
We were on our own after that.
We didn’t speak to each other at all as we made our way through the airport, first to checkin, then to security. We passed through the metal detector and put our luggage on the conveyor belt so that it could be screened. I was frightened at this point and I became self-conscious, too aware of the expression on my face. I didn’t want to seem afraid, I didn’t want to look at any of the security guards, in case they picked up on something, but I think this made me look guilty. Afra slipped her hand in mine, but the feel of her skin, and the fact that she was standing so close to me, made me uncomfortable, so I took a step away.
Soon we had our bags and we made our way to duty free, and there we had an hour’s wait and another half-hour delay. I bought us each a coffee and we strolled around, as casually as we could, pretending to window-shop until we were called to gate 27.
At the gate we took a seat next to a couple with two children who were playing games on their phones. For a moment I let my shoulders relax and I thought everything would work out OK. I watched the little boy so engrossed in his game; he was a bit younger than Sami would have been, wearing a colourful rucksack which he didn’t take off even though he was sitting down.
Afra was so still and so quiet I almost forgot that she was there. There was a part of me that wished she would just disappear, that the seat next to me was empty. The boy’s game ended and he threw his arms up in the air and that’s when I noticed a disturbance by the gate entrance. There were five police officers talking to a flight attendant, who was looking more and more distressed. I saw that one of the officers was scanning the area. I looked down. I whispered to Afra to act normal. Then I glanced up, unintentionally, and for a second the officer caught my eye and I thought that was it. We had been found out. We would be going back. But back where? Back to what?
The officers came through the entrance into the waiting lounge and I held my breath and prayed as they walked towards us and then past us, to the last seats by the windows, where a group of four young men and women suddenly stood up, startled, afraid, grabbing their bags, looking as if they wanted to make a run for it, but there was nowhere to go. We all tried not to stare as the four were escorted out, and I noticed as they walked past me that one young man was crying, wiping his face with the backs of his hands, so many tears that he could barely see where he was going. He stumbled over my bag and paused to look at me. The police officer pulled him on. I will never forget the look of pain and fear in his eyes.
Afra and I showed our boarding passes and passports at the gate exit. The woman checked them, glanced at us both in turn and wished us a safe and pleasant journey.
So we boarded the plane and took our seats and I sat there with my eyes closed, hearing the noises and conversations of the people around me, listening to the safety instructions and waiting for the sound of the engine. Afra grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
‘We’re going,’ I heard her whisper. ‘Nuri, we’re going to Mustafa and we will be safe.’ And before I knew it we were off, up into the big, blue sky. We were finally going. Going away.
14
WHEN I WAKE UP IT is night-time and I am in the storage cupboard, my head pressed up against the vacuum cleaner, coats above me, shoes and boots digging into my back. I stand up and head along the corridor. I can hear the sleep sounds of the other residents. The Moroccan man is snoring loudly, and as I walk past his room I see that the bronze pocket watch is hanging from the door handle. I take a closer look at the etchings of flowers on the casing and the mother-of-pearl face, the initials engraved on its underside: AL. The time is stuck at four o’clock. Diomande’s door is wide open. He is sleeping on his side, the covers draped loosely over him. I walk quietly into the darkness of his room and place my hand on his back, expecting to feel the wings, those tightly scrunched-up balls curling out of his dark skin. But instead I feel ridges of distorted skin, large protruding scars running along the blades like burn marks. My eyes fill up with tears and I swallow them. I think about him, so full of dreams.